


Practice

by anastasiatremaine



Category: Friends (TV)
Genre: Chandler POV, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Helpful Phoebe, M/M, Probably too tropey and cliche, a bit of angst, s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 05:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13495746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anastasiatremaine/pseuds/anastasiatremaine
Summary: Sometimes the only thing scarier than not getting what you want is getting it.





	Practice

**Author's Note:**

> I'm watching Friends for the very first time and I find myself really invested in Chandler Bing as a character and I love his relationship with Joey. I'm only up to Season 3 so I don't know what happens later, but I have some peripheral knowledge about Chandler's dad and whatnot. This fic takes place specifically during 2.24 "The One with Barry and Mindy's Wedding", when Joey has to kiss a guy for an audition, and like I said I haven't finished the series so I'm sorry if it's out of character or if I'm contradicting canon too much, but I think it's pretty consistent with at least their Season 1-3 characterizations. Please review!  
> In this fic Chandler is a repressed bisexual with a preference for men. Just fyi.  
> Edited on 1/29 (fixed typos, added a few lines.)

From the second Joey mentions having to kiss a man for an audition, Chandler’s heart starts racing. He immediately hates himself for it and pretends he doesn’t notice. And then takes a second to berate himself again, for trying to hide something he’s doing from his own damn self, because of course that’s the kind of thing Chandler does. He hears himself crack a joke, which he always does when he’s trying to hide something or diffuse a situation or maybe just cause a distraction. He hears the snorts and sees the eyerolls but it works, he’s safe, no one pays him any attention.

Chandler watches Phoebe kiss Joey with a smile on his face, or at least that’s what he tells himself he’s watching. He’s not watching Joey kiss her. He’s not watching Joey’s mouth. No, he’s watching Phoebe, and he does it with an easy slightly amused smile, maybe even a laugh, that alerts no one to the prick of jealousy he’s feeling. How Phoebe can just _kiss_ him there in the middle of the coffee shop and no one cares. It’s a good kiss, too, he can tell, and Phoebe says as much a moment later.

“Joey, you know, maybe you’re just not used to kissing _men_ ,” Monica is saying, “maybe you just tensed up a little bit.”

Joey’s eyebrows rise at that, and that open, adorable expression of hope appears on his face as he looks quickly between Chandler and Ross. Chandler definitely doesn’t feel his already not-racing heart not-race any faster.

“Over my dead body,” Ross says as the girls giggle. Joey turns to Chandler, eyes wide, shrugging a ‘come on, why not?’. Chandler pretends he hasn’t wanted to kiss Joey, hasn’t wanted Joey to want to kiss him, and again fails to fool himself.

He can hear the joke on his lips - ‘ _And I’ll be using his dead body as a shield_ ’ - but it dies when he meets Joey’s eyes.

Chandler affects a long-suffering sigh, perhaps a touch too theatrical in its resignedness, but it makes the girls giggle again as they see he’s acquiescing. Ross’ shocked expression of ‘what the _fuck?_ ’ almost makes him change his mind, because that feeling of causing disgust and confusion to his friends, or to anyone, is such an enormous cause of fear to him- but again, the impulse fades when he sees Joey’s expression. It changes at lightning speed to one of glee and gratitude when he realizes Chandler is agreeing.

“Hands above the waist, alright mister?” Chandler jokes with that touch of smarminess he’s perfected as he gets to his feet. Joey laughs and the sound blooms over Chandler like the warmth of the sun.

He knows it’s his neuroses and his paranoia, but he feels like the café, the city, the whole world, goes quiet, like a million pairs of eyes are on him, searching him. He coughs awkwardly, seeing that there’s nothing on Joey’s face now, just a neutral concentration. Chandler knows he views this as nothing but a blip in his acting prep. He pretends it doesn’t hurt.

Chandler takes a second to quiet the _fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck_ going off like red alert fire alarm bells in his brain, and before he can lose his nerve he wraps his right hand around the back of Joey’s neck and pulls him into a kiss. Joey immediately responds, and when his tongue meets Chandler’s, somewhere in the back of his brain Chandler recognizes a possibility in which his knees buckle from this. He pushes the thought away. They kiss twice or three times, quickly, mouths barely parting before meeting again just like the kiss Joey shared with Phoebe moments earlier. One of Joey’s hands is pressing into Chandler’s side, above the waist of course as he had stipulated. Chandler is the first to pull away, he makes himself pull away, because he knows if he doesn’t force it to end now he will let it go on for as long as Joey lets him.

Chandler looks around but no one outside of his friends has noticed, the other café occupants haven’t given them a glance; it helps calm his not-racing pulse. Monica and Phoebe look at him expectantly, Rachel lets out a good natured whoop, and Ross still has a slight confused disdain on his face that says ‘better you than me’. Joey has his arms spread, hands open, wanting a review.

“Well?” he asks, a grin on his face, the look of someone who knows they’ve just aced a test.

“Yeah, you know Phoebe, I have to disagree. You said firm but tender, I’m gonna have to go with tender, but firm.” The joke diffuses some of the already miniscule tension in the room.

“Really?” Joey says gleefully. Chandler knows he loves being complimented.

“Yeah, I dunno what to tell you man, you seem like a good kisser to me,” Chandler says, shrugging, amazed he can sound so nonchalant as he takes his seat again and grabs another cookie.

“Then what’s the _problem?_ ” Joey groans, his face falling. He slumps heavily back into his seat.

“I say you just have to work on it, honey,” Monica says.

“Practice makes perfect!” Phoebe chimes in. Joey just nods.

Chandler’s grateful no one is looking at him strangely. He’s grateful this very public kiss doesn’t seem to have affected anything or anyone. He’s grateful when they change the subject.

-

It’s late. Joey’s not home. Chandler is in the middle of a conversation in a chat room, and the woman he’s talking to is telling him to stop his quips and jokes and be serious for five seconds. He doesn’t know what to say, really. His jokes are his armor. Who would he be without them? Would anyone even like him?

His fingers are poised above the keys, motionless as he thinks of a reply. The sight before him of his pale hands, slightly blue in the computer screen light, against the black of the keyboard, is almost creepy. Like something they’d show distorted in the X-Files opening credits. He clears the absurd thought away, wondering why his mind always goes somewhere weird and lonely.

He hears keys in the door and the light flicks on, blinding him. It’s Joey, and when he sees Chandler he grins, which also blinds him.

“Hey,” Chandler says, his voice slightly hoarse after hours of silence.

 **BBL** , he types quickly to his chat room partner, and slams his computer shut, for some reason embarrassed.

“Whatcha got there?” Joey asks as his kicks off his shoes, eyebrows raised.

“Nothing,” Chandler answers, too quickly.

Joey’s taking his jacket off now, and Chandler’s mouth goes just a little bit dry. Joey chuckles. “You know, it’s better to watch it on the tv. That computer screen is too small.”

Chandler rolls his eyes. Of course Joey’s mind would go there.

“It wasn’t that, Joe. Forget it.” Chandler hates the bitterness in his voice. He gets up from the kitchen counter and starts to make his way to his room.

“Hey, hey, sorry,” Joey is saying, and he’s suddenly in front of him, right in front of him, and his voice is all sweet and soft. Chandler hates and loves him.

“Well, goodnight Joe,” he says pointedly, and goes to walk around him.

“Um, wait, Chandler?”

Chandler closes his eyes.

“Yeah?”

“You know how…” Chandler hears Joey swallow. He turns back around. Joey isn’t looking at him.

“You know how Monica said I just needed to practice?” he asks, and now his eyes dart up to meet Chandler’s. But Chandler tears his gaze away lest Joey see the want there, and he just nods.

“Kissing?” Joey goes on. Chandler nods again.

“ _Men?_ ” he says the last word in a whisper, like something to hide. Chandler sighs.

“Yes, Joey, I was there,” he replies condescendingly. Joey swallows again.

“Well, I was wondering if… you would…” Joey trails off. He nods his head and shrugs, encouraging Chandler to get the hint. “You know?”

Chandler is still. He feels a joke bubbling in his throat - ‘ _Well, the first one was free, but after that it’s 50 bucks an hour_ ’ - and then he remembers what his Internet girl had told him.

**KNOCK IT OFF. GET REAL.**

Get real? What, so go up and grab Joey again, press his lips to his like he’s dreamed of doing since the day he moved in? Admit to himself and to Joey how much he wants him?

No.

So then he turns back around. “Goodnight, Joe.” It’s not quite the getting real, being truthful, owning up that she probably meant, but at least it’s not a joke. A compromise.

“Aw, come on Chandler! Be a friend!” Joey shouts, all desperate enthusiasm. _I am_ , Chandler thinks.

“I said goodnight Joseph!” he answers, mimicking Joey’s tone. He slams his door.

He leans against it, the back of his head against the wood, and wills his pulse to slow down. He can hear Joey sigh dramatically, and then he throws himself down into his recliner and flicks the tv on. Low, so it won’t bother him.

Chandler’s eyes close. He allows himself to remember Joey’s kisses, the two of them. One of them was quick, nothing, a New Year’s peck to shut him up. And now there was this other one, with Joey’s hand on his side, and his hand on Joey’s neck, and his tongue in Joey’s mouth. Now he’s tasted him and made it worse, whatever the “it” was in the first place that Chandler was trying not to think about, was trying to pretend wasn’t there, now it lived with him.

And Joey asking, pleading with Chandler to kiss him again, it hurt. Because it didn’t mean anything to Joey, and Chandler was pretending it didn’t mean anything to him either. It would be easy to take him up on it, but Chandler felt like that would be using him. Using him to get a taste of what he wanted without telling Joey what it meant. Yes, what Joey was asking for hurt Chandler, but at least Joey was being honest.

-

When he goes over to Monica’s the next day and tells them about his little Internet… dating… thing… they laugh. They call him a geek. He doesn’t mind really, because he knows they love him anyway, and he knows it’s not normal. When he mentions he’s trying to not joke or be quippy and get real, their reactions pretty much confirm what he already thinks. He had asked himself just last night, ‘Would anyone even like me?’, and now here were Phoebe and Richard saying “I don’t like you this way!”

Ah, well.

-

Joey is bounding over the apartment like a golden retriever as Chandler’s on his “date” online.

“Come on, Chandler, I want this part so much!” Joey says, leaning in close to Chandler’s ear. He can feel his breath on the back of his neck and it gives him goose bumps. But Chandler just looks at him, annoyed.

“Just one more kiss, I won’t tell anyone,” Joey adds in a lower voice that Chandler tells himself makes him feel absolutely nothing.

“Joey, no means no!” Chandler answers firmly. Joey sighs in disappointment and walks away, hands on his hips in defeat. It makes Chandler feel almost smug, until Joey attempts to foist a kiss upon Ross not even 30 seconds afterward, and then practically sprints downstairs to corner Richard.

He doesn’t know why it keeps stinging him, why it keeps feeling like peroxide on an open wound when he remembers Joey doesn’t want him how Chandler wants him to. It’s just for a part for him. It was never anything more. Chandler knows that, he _knows_ it. So why does it keep hurting?

He shakes his head to clear the sting away, and focuses on his computer, on the girl he’s talking to.

He’s surprised by how much he likes this girl, how much he doesn’t even feel embarrassed when Phoebe sees she’s written **HH** for ‘holding hands’. Usually he doesn’t feel much for women, which he’s tried to tell himself doesn’t mean anything besides he’s awkward and has commitment issues. The fact that there have been (admittedly extremely rare) exceptions to his overall indifference to females has helped comfort him whenever the concept he might be gay wanders through his mind. Which it does. A lot.

Chandler felt like he was getting closer to admitting to himself he might be bisexual at least? But then at one of Phoebe’s Central Perk sets she said something along the lines of, “bisexuals are just kidding themselves”, and he shoved that one to the back of his mind again.

Now Phoebe is saying the girl he’s talking to might be a guy, and Chandler gets just a little too intense, a little too defensive when he says she’s wrong.

“I got _this_ close to him and Monica kneed me in the back,” Joey is saying as he walks back into the apartment. Chandler chuckles, relieved that no one besides him got to kiss Joey, at least not today, and then he quickly hopes no one notices his relief. It’s exhausting, having to check and double-check his every reaction, it is so fucking exhausting.

And now they find out the girl online is married. Chandler can feel his face fall. Of course she is, because nothing good can ever last for him. One of the rare cases talking to a woman doesn’t make him feel like he’s performing or lying or broken, and she’s fucking married.

“Oh man, I’m sorry,” Joey’s voice floats into his ear. And then a pause, and he can pretty much hear the thought clunk into place as Joey changes his tone to an overly-comforting one.

“This must be really tough for you, huh?” Joey asks softly, his hand going to Chandler’s shoulder and rubbing, massaging, comforting. Chandler’s tongue goes between his lip and his teeth as he wills himself to _act natural act natural act natural_. He can’t let Joey know how just a touch like this makes life so difficult for him.

Phoebe laughs, but she’s cut short when her beeper goes off. Chandler thanks every God he can think of for breaking the moment.

“Oh, I gotta take this,” she says, and goes to their phone.

“Don’t be long please, I’m waitin’ for Angela to call me back,” Joey says.

 **MY HUSBAND IS SLEEPING WITH HIS SECRETARY**. Chandler stares at the small words on the screen.

 **HELLO?** blips up a second later.

Joey goes back around the counter, so he’s behind Chandler again. “You gonna answer her?”

Chandler doesn’t say anything.

**I’M SORRY.**

 “Ugh, it’s one of my clients, she needs an emergency session because she thinks her cat is seeing another owner behind her back,” Phoebe chitters, grabbing her handbag. Joey laughs, but Chandler can’t even think up a departing barb before she’s out the door.

 **WHAT’S WRONG?** appears on the screen.

Chandler slams the laptop closed and gets up from the counter, brushing past Joey to the center of the living room. He’s pacing back and forth, running his fingers through his hair agitatedly.

“What’s wrong?” he says, his voice rising, his other hand waving wildly. “What’s _wrong?_ ”

“Hey man, maybe-” Joey starts, and Chandler’s relieved he’s dropped his seduction routine because Chandler honestly doesn’t think he’d need much more prodding at this point. There’s only so many times your hope can be cracked in half before you take any lifesaver someone throws you.

“Maybe-” Joey starts again. He keeps his mouth open as he visibly thinks of something to say, but a second later his shoulders slump. “I’m sorry, man, I got nothin’. This sucks.”

Chandler snorts, and then throws himself down on the couch, his frenetic anger dissipated as quickly as it appeared. Joey softly settles himself next to him, silent. He’s sort of sitting on one leg, facing Chandler who’s facing outward, deliberately not looking at him.

“Why does this always have to happen?” Chandler hears himself ask quietly, and he despises the pathetic self pity in his voice. “I get one thing, one thing that might be good and something has to-”

Joey puts a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, man, come on, there will be other girls. Ones that are probably not married, hey?” and he hitches a hopeful half-smile on his face in gentle optimism.

Chandler looks at him, and his heart breaks because Joey is so good. He’s so good, and he’s so open, and this, sitting here, talking, it’s so easy and solid and constant.

“You’ll find someone, Chandler. I know it. Someone who sees how good you are and wants you, only you. Someone who will put you first.”

Joey’s brown eyes are flicking back and forth between Chandler’s, and he feels like he can see some kind of realization dawning there. It’s slow, and Joey’s brow is furrowing, but it’s there.

Chandler’s breath catches. And that thing Chandler tells himself he doesn’t feel, he’s feeling it. He’s feeling it, and he’s surprised because he’s only ever felt it when Joey wasn’t looking and wasn’t aware of the effect he had on him. He feels it when Joey’s just done something adorably stupid, or just something adorable, or something kind, and he feels it alone. But Joey’s looking right at him and he’s feeling it _now_ , and he thinks maybe Joey can feel it too? Which is crazy, because _Joey Tribbiani, ladies’ man_ , is practically on his business card.

It scares the hell out of him. Half of him wants to leap up and run into his room and half of him wants- half of him wants-

Half of him wants Joey.

All of him wants Joey.

The phone rings. And Chandler sighs again in relief that the moment is broken, and he’s prevented from doing something stupid. But then he realizes the moment isn’t broken. Neither of them move, not even when the machine picks up and it’s Angela returning Joey’s call. It’s white noise, it’s gauze, it’s nothing.

Joey’s staring at Chandler, and Chandler realizes he’s moving in again, he’s making a move again, and Chandler is so close to rebuffing him with a joke again.

“Jo-” Chandler starts, but then Joey’s lips are on his. And he doesn’t push him off. In fact almost without him noticing he’s doing it, he curls his fingers into the neck of Joey’s t-shirt and pulls him closer. They break apart and fall back together, changing their angle, and Chandler hears a little whimper and he doesn’t know who made it. It was probably him, because Joey doesn’t _whimper_. Or at least that’s what he thinks, until he hears it again and knows it wasn’t him.

Joey sighs into his mouth, and his hand goes to Chandler’s side, kind of around his back, and gently pushes them together some more. One of Joey’s knees is pressing into Chandler’s thigh and Chandler’s mind is completely blank. He has no frame of reference on how to react to this. His brain, usually buzzing with half a dozen sardonic comments, is only focused on this moment. The scent of Joey’s cologne, the soft pressure of his hand, the swipe of his tongue.

Eventually, after several long moments, Joey pulls away. Chandler’s breathing is loud in his ears, or is it Joey’s?

“For the audition?” Chandler chokes out.

“Yeah,” Joey answers, and Chandler sees his rapid breath and his wide eyes.

“Yeah,” Chandler repeats, letting himself lie, and then he leans forward and kisses him again, even as alarms are screaming in his head that it’s too much, it’s too intense, he’ll scare Joey away, he’s ruined their friendship, he’s made it weird, and a dozen, a hundred other anxious threats that go silent when he realize Joey’s kissing him back.

He hums, and his hand goes to Joey’s neck, trying to pull him even closer. They break apart when Chandler slightly gets up so he can change how he’s sitting, and he sits back down with one leg bent in front of him, mirroring Joey’s stance so they’re facing each other.

He doesn’t let his brain start screaming again, he just yanks Joey into him, and Joey lets him. Every second the kiss gets deeper, and Joey keeps making that _noise_ -

And then the door bursts open.

“Forgot my-!” Phoebe’s voice starts and stops with equal rapidity.“… scarf.”

Joey and Chandler both leap away from each other and get to their feet. They start explaining at the same time.

“He needs practice-”

“I really want this part-”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh, guys, yeah,” Phoebe says, nodding, grinning. “Yep, it’s fine! Carry on! Good job!” She flashes Chandler a thumbs up, and turns to leave. She’s chuckling, but it’s not a mean-natured laugh, and it doesn’t make Chandler want to die. That much.

Chandler sighs, and sure enough the alarm bells start ringing in his head again, but maybe at a decibel or two lower than usual.

“It’s fine, man, she knows it’s for the part,” Joey is saying when Chandler turns to him. His face is flushed and his eyes are bright. He keeps licking his lips.

“Yeah,” Chandler says, watching.

A beat of silence.

“Hey, I’m gonna-”

“I need a shower-”

“-take a walk,”

“and I gotta call Angela,”

And they each go in opposite directions, and Chandler is hoping the number of times in the last 48 hours his pulse has gone from 0 to 500 isn’t dangerous, and he tells himself to calm the fuck down.

The idea of Joey in the shower is not helpful.

-

Chandler can’t split up a marriage.

He’s been in the middle of a split up marriage before and he doesn’t want to be in the middle of one again.

No matter how much he likes this girl, no matter how much Phoebe tells him (later that night, at Central Perk) that maybe her husband isn’t the right guy but Chandler might be, no matter how desperate he is to just be normal and find a woman, he can’t do it again.

And the sick thing is, he might’ve. If he hadn’t kissed Joey that afternoon- alright, if he hadn’t _made out_ with Joey that afternoon- he might’ve listened to Phoebe. He can imagine some universe where her advice worked on him. But it wasn’t this one, because in this one he’d made out with Joey Tribbiani, and he knew now he was ruined for anyone else.

He’d opened up his problem to the floor anyway, as he always did. Ross, who had experience with marriages being broken up by a wife cheating, was adamantly against Chandler pursuing the Internet girl, as Chandler knew he would be. Rachel, obviously, agrees with Ross, but she also nods thoughtfully when Phoebe speaks. Monica suggests Chandler find out more information, find out if the woman’s marriage could be salvaged, find out how serious she was about leaving her husband. And then there’s Joey.

Chandler asked, hey, what do you think Joe, and Joey was silent. He’d been silent all afternoon when Chandler got back from his walk, he’d been silent all evening at the café, and he was silent now, too, as he thought.

“I don’t think you should be with her. You should be with someone else.”

He’s so serious and still and it kind of freaks Chandler out. Joey’s like a puppy, or a big kid, always moving and enthusiastic and impulsive. His neat, concise words are, to use actor lingo, way out of character.

Chandler doesn’t have a response.

Phoebe looks between them for a second, before blurting out, “Hey! Subject change! Do you think pets can cheat?”

That keeps the group busy for a bit. Eventually, though, Joey says he’s gonna bow out early. “The audition tomorrow, you know,” he mumbles as he gets his coat.

“Oh, Chandler, I hope you hid that Indian statue,” Monica says, laughing.

“Native American, Monica,” Ross says with his history-major voice. That gets the group going again, and Chandler finds himself getting to his feet as they chatter.

“I’m gonna head home, too, guys,” Chandler says, his mind already back to the apartment.

“Sure! That makes sense, you know, because you live there,” Phoebe says, trying to help. He loves her for it.

-

Chandler walks into the silent apartment. The lights are off, but the tv is on, and Joey swivels around in his recliner to look at him.

“Hey,” Joey says.

“Hey,” Chandler says, taking his jacket off and checking the phone for messages. There aren’t any besides the one Angela left earlier.

“You didn’t call her back?”

Joey swallows. “No.” Chandler nods.

He stands up. Chandler keeps nodding, because he doesn’t know what else to do. He’s telling his neck to stop it but it’s not listening.

“When is your audition again?” Chandler asks, and winces when he hears how high his voice is.

“Tomorrow morning,” Joey says, and his voice, on the contrary, seems much deeper than usual.

Chandler is still nodding. “Plenty of time for… practice? Then?” He hates himself. He’s going to die. He’s actually going to die of embarrassment and desperation. They’ll write papers about it called Fastest Ways To Ruin Friendships And Die. Ross will make a display in his history museum and everything and people will study him.

But Joey is saying, yeah, and Chandler grasps onto it like a raft, and he’s so thankful for this excuse to kiss Joey that it doesn’t matter that it’s just an excuse, and he can’t understand why Joey is letting him have this excuse but he wants it so bad he pretends too.

Joey closes the distance between them and presses Chandler against the door, and then his lips go to his neck. He’s so soft about it, and Chandler’s eyes flutter shut, they actually _flutter_ , which is a ridiculous thing he didn’t think actually happened to anyone.

“I usually charge for this sort of thing you know,” Chandler says, the joke section of his brain apparently deciding to show up for work again, and Joey’s laugh vibrates through him.

“You know I don’t have any money,” he answers, and his voice is so low and throaty in a way Chandler’s never heard.

“Guess you’ll have to owe me,” Chandler replies, and he’s smiling when Joey’s mouth covers his own.

-

He wakes up the next morning half-convinced it was a dream. But then when he’s shaving in the bathroom mirror he sees his neck, and dreams don’t leave hickeys.

Joey’s awake and he’s munching his cereal in front of the tv, watching a cartoon. He hears him laugh through the bathroom door, and he remembers what that laugh feels like against his skin, and he shivers.

He opens the door.

“Morning, Joe,” Chandler says, pouring himself a glass of orange juice.

“Morning,” he answers, not looking away from the tv.

Chandler wanders over to the chair, and stands on the left side of it. He watches the coyote chase the road runner for a few minutes, and then he looks down at Joey. Joey is staring right at him, but when their eyes meet Joey coughs and looks away. After a second he gets up hurriedly, and goes around the right side of the armchair to put his bowl in the sink.

“I should,” he coughs again, “go get dressed, I have that audition today,” Joey is practically scrambling into his room.

“What audition?” Chandler asks, feigning obliviousness to be funny, because being funny is what he does when he feels like he’s getting punched.

Joey freezes for a second, an expression of terror on his face, and then a second later a grin breaks. He chuckles.

“You had me there for a second, ha,” he says, and then he’s in his room, door shut.

Chandler stands in the empty room, and listens to the sound of the coyote getting crushed with an anvil.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “For a second there, I had you.”

-

He hears Ross’ voice from inside his bedroom. Ross is rambling on about wanting to be a good friend, and he tells Joey to close his eyes. On some level Chandler is gleeful, because this is way too funny and he knew Ross would be mortified if he knew Chandler could hear him.

And then the glee fades away because, Ross would be mortified if he knew Chandler could hear him. Ross would be mortified if anyone knew he had voluntarily kissed a man. Because men kissing men is mortifying to one of his closest friends.

“That was some kiss,” Joey says after he tells Ross his audition was actually this morning. “Rachel is a lucky girl.”

Ross stutters something and leaves. Chandler can hear Joey chuckling. Chandler pretends it’s funny too.

-

The rest of the afternoon and evening is torture. Chandler feels like there’s a heavy fog in the air between him and Joey, even when they’re at Monica’s and Rachel is groaning with embarrassment as she tells them of the disastrous wedding she went to. Sure, they joke and needle the girls, they even sit next to each other and occasionally trade a glance before bursting into laughter, but Chandler still senses something is off. Something has changed between them. And it’s literally his worst fear coming true in front of him and he doesn’t know how to handle it besides to act exactly the same.

The one small mercy is that no one else seems to have picked up on it, but that feeling of security grinds to a halt when Phoebe shows up, and one glance at them from her has Chandler knowing she can see it too.

It has Chandler leaping out of his seat.

“Hey, I’m gonna go to bed,” he announces, striding across the room.

“It’s seven-thirty,” Monica says, but Chandler’s closing the door already.

-

He waits up for he doesn’t know how long, rehearsing what he’s gonna say to Joey. Time passes immeasurably slowly, or maybe immeasurably quickly, he can’t tell. But eventually he hears the door open and Joey shuffle in.

Chandler sits up from his bed, takes a deep breath, and stands up. He takes several more breaths, pushing his feelings for Joey down, pushing them away. He’s good at it, he has- the word makes him laugh- practice. It terrifies him to go out there and try and address this issue that apparently exists between them now. But he has to do it, he has to fix this, because he can’t lose it.

Joey is almost to his room when Chandler opens his door. He half expects Joey to ignore him but he doesn’t. He stops, and even takes a step or two closer to him. Chandler walks the rest of the way.

“Joe, hey, I just wanna say I’m sorry if things got kinda weird over the past few days,” Chandler says, congratulating himself on his smooth delivery. He doesn’t sound heartbroken at all.

Joey’s face, which a second before had been tense and apprehensive, breaks into a smile, but the tension doesn’t quite leave his shoulders. “Aw, that’s alright man, if anything it’s my fault, I’m the one who kept buggin’ you.”

Chandler nods. “I’m sorry you didn’t get the part, Joe.”

“Oh, I got it! Yeah! I didn’t tell you?” Joey replies.

There’s a silence. “N-no, you didn’t, but hey! That’s great! I’m h-, I’m happy I could help!” The grin on his face causes Chandler physical pain. It’s not that he’s not happy Joey got the part, it’s just it hurts so damn much to bury his affection again and again.

“Yeah, apparently I was _real_ convincing,” Joey says, nodding, self-satisfied, the toothy grin still in place.

They’re quiet again.

And then-

“So, _uh-hm_ , I guess now that I’ve got the part, I won’t be needin’ to, uh, you know,” Joey’s voice falters a bit, and he looks apprehensive again. “… anymore.”

“Yeah, no, yeah,” Chandler’s saying, nodding again. “It’s not like it, you know. Meant anything.” Chandler shrugs, aloof. His every body movement is under his control now, and it’s a tight, tense control.

“Yeah,” Joey agrees, laughter punctuating the word breathily, even as his body language doesn’t relax at all.

Chandler laughs too, because that idea is just so funny, yeah.

And Joey thought he was the actor.

Joey turns to go to sleep. And Chandler’s control slips for just a second, and he says,

“You know if you ever need to…” Joey turns back to him, the grin fading. Chandler swallows. The red alert in his head should be screaming, but when he looks at Joey’s eyes like this, it stays quiet. “If you ever need… anything. I’m here. I’ll always be here, Joey.”

And Chandler wants to die, again.

Joey’s face is serious now, and his brow is furrowed, and he takes half a step closer. His eyes flicker from Chandler’s eyes to his lips in a movement so quick he might have imagined it. He must have imagined it, because Joey has just said he doesn’t wanna do this anymore.

“Hey, Chandler, can I ask you somethin’?” he says, quiet and unsure and sincere, and Chandler thinks this might be who Joey is when he’s not all swagger and bravado. He feels himself fall just a little bit deeper.

“Anything,” Chandler answers, softly as well, even as he tells himself to get a fucking grip and go to sleep.

“Do you really like her?” And Joey’s brown eyes are huge in the dark, looking right into Chandler’s.

Now it’s Chandler’s turn to furrow his brow. And the affirmative answer is on the tip of his tongue because it’s safe and it will hide him for a little longer, and even though it might be true that he likes her, what he feels for her is nothing when Joey is looking at him like this. And just for this second Chandler decides he doesn’t want to lie.

“No,” he says, breathless.

Joey’s face kind of lights up, and he says, “Oh.”

Chandler nods. “Yeah.”

Joey licks his lips, and Chandler’s gaze is drawn to it so obviously he knows Joey can’t miss it. But when Chandler flicks his eyes back to Joey’s, he sees Joey looking at his mouth too.

“’Cause I was gonna say, if you did… you should tell her. You should go for it.” Joey licks his lips again, and then makes eye contact with Chandler. “You should go for it, Chandler.” And it sounds like he’s hinting. He’s all but widening his eyes and nodding exaggeratedly.

But Chandler just coughs. Because he’s hopeless and awkward and afraid.

He steps backwards. But Joey keeps talking.

“Maybe it doesn’t matter if it’s messy or somethin’. Maybe it doesn’t matter if it’ll take a lot of explaining. You know?”

Chandler just takes a couple deep breaths. The alarms are going off again. _Danger! Danger! Get outta there!_

“Yeah, well, I gotta get to sleep, so,” Chandler hears his voice say, but he doesn’t remember giving his brain the command to say it.

Joey’s face falls.

Chandler turns around. He walks into his room and he closes the door behind him and he sits down heavily in his bed and he puts his head in his hands.

The room is spinning. He closes his eyes but it’s still spinning and now there are other things spinning. He can see Joey’s glittering eyes, he can hear his voice saying go for it, he can see Phoebe’s knowing gaze, and he hears Rachel’s whoop when they kissed in the coffee shop, and he feels Joey’s hand on his side, and he remembers Joey’s lips pressing into his, and Joey pressing his back against the door-

Chandler curses, loudly, and stands up, pacing. Does he mean what Chandler thinks- _I mean, he must, what else could he mean?_ he screams to himself silently.

He makes it to his bedroom door, and opens it, before the fear slams into him. He tries to ignore it, and he walks across to Joey’s door. He raises his hand to knock, but then- it chokes him. The fear of being like his father, the fear of being the kind of man one of his best friends thinks is weird, the fear of splitting up his chosen family like how his biological one was. He can’t breathe. He turns back around and closes the door behind him again, and the dark stillness of his room makes him feel safe.

But then there’s that feeling he gets when Joey looks at him, the one that makes something warm rush up his spine and expand in his chest, and how Joey’s smile blinds him, and Joey laughing against his neck, and suddenly the stagnant black surrounding him makes him feel like he’s suffocating.

He’s back at his door, wildly flinging it open, gasping for breath, can he breathe? Is he breathing?

And there’s Joey, his hand raised in a fist, poised to knock against the door Chandler just opened. The sight of him is like a deep, cool, crisp, breath.

Chandler is panting, and he realizes his cheeks are wet.

“If you won’t go for it, I will,” he hears Joey say, and then Joey is grabbing him and pressing their mouths together, hard. This isn’t like the other kisses, those slow and gentle exploratory kisses under pretense. This is rough, desperate and wanting, and honest. And this one is going somewhere.

Chandler lets out a huff against his mouth, and he fumbles around behind Joey’s back and slams his bedroom door shut so he can have something to push Joey against.

“Yes,” Joey murmurs when they break for air.

“I’m sorry,” Chandler is gasping, and Joey’s hand is against his cheek, wiping the tears away. “I’m sorry,” he says again. He realizes his mind is quiet, the fear is gone, the fire alarms are gone, at least for this moment.

Joey is smiling. “What for, man?” And he’s kissing him again.

“For being- a neurotic- mess-” Chandler says between kisses, and stars burst in his vision for a second when Joey slots one of his legs between Chandler’s.

“Ah, that’s okay,” Joey says, and his voice has gone all deep again, and Chandler thinks for the dozenth time that day that he’s going to die, except this time it’s from something positive.

“You don’t know what neurotic means do you,” Chandler says unevenly as Joey licks across his Adam’s apple.

“’Course I do, it’s like when somethin’ happens that you don’t expect because it doesn’t really make sense and so it’s kinda funny,” Joey answers, all confidence. His hands won’t stop moving, they’re against Chandler’s neck and his side and in his hair and on his hip.

“But that doesn’t mean it’s not good,” Joey says after a pause, serious and still for just a second.

“It’s good,” he says again. It’s not a lot, but he knows Joey isn’t great with words, and it’s enough for him. Chandler nods.

Their eyes meet again, and Chandler knows now, that whatever that feeling is that he tries to ignore, it’s here in the room and they’re both feeling it and he won’t be able to pretend it’s not there ever again. Joey takes one of Chandler’s hands, threads their fingers together, and brushes his lips against his knuckles. Chandler almost groans because of course, of course Joey does perfect things like that.

Chandler begins to say, ‘You know, that’s _ironic_ not _neurotic_ ’, but then Joey’s tongue is in his mouth again and his hips are grinding against him and any further words in his throat fade away.

-

A couple hours later, they are finally still.

They didn’t go all the way, but they went a hell of a lot farther than Chandler ever thought they would, and he’s remarking how he could die at this moment from happiness.

He needs to stop thinking about himself dying so much.

“Wow, you really want to be prepared for this part, huh,” he says, when his breathing is even again.

Joey just laughs and curls into Chandler, his forehead fitting perfectly into the nook between Chandler’s neck and shoulder, fevered skin against fevered skin. And then Chandler’s laughing too.

And for a long time, they both can’t stop.


End file.
